E-learning for empowering the rural people in Bangladesh opportunities and challenges

Inadequate educational resources, insufficient and unqualified teachers and health care providers, and lack of community involvement, are some of the causes that contribute to the poor state of education and health in rural Bangladesh. This is although, it is well known that, access to quality education and scientific knowledge is essential for creating economic growth and sustainable human development, including poverty alleviation and improvement of human health. In all countries and in the developing countries in particular, there is a need to employ Information and Communication Technology, ICT to gain global access to learning. ICT can address issues of educational equity, social exclusion and can deliver a more effective and accessible educational opportunities. It can also reduce cost of reaching and educating many rural students who are deprived of creative education due to lack of qualified teaching force. In Bangladesh, the education curriculum has been modernized to meet an international standard. For various reasons, qualified teachers are not keen to move to rural areas. The same is true in areas of health sectors where qualified medical doctors are not willing to move to rural areas. Therefore, we find enormous potentials for contribution of e-Learning and e-Health in empowering the rural educators as well as health care providers. A pilot project to test the potentials of e-Learning is implemented at a village Nohata in Magura district in Bangladesh (www.nuhat.org). Started in 2006, it has been using ICT tools to communicate, learn, and access international quality educational content. International quality teachers have been conducting teaching using videoconference system. Various relevant e-Learning aids have been developed to meet the local needs and conditions, you tube programmes covering different topics are carefully selected to meet the appropriate requirement of different target groups. The links are downloaded so that the students, the teachers, health workers, patients can follow the links off line, as many times as they want and discuss among themselves. The ICT tools are also being used to improve access to health care; enhance the quality of service delivery; improve the effectiveness of public health and primary care interventions; improve the shortage of health professionals through collaboration and training. ICT tools are offering solutions for emergency medical assistance, long-distance consultation, supervision quality assurance, and education and training for healthcare professionals and providers. The main challenges are to empower the rural people through creating locally relevant content for improving proficiency in English language, Mathematics, Science and Health care application and services considering the socio-cultural factors, to achieve health, education and economic development. Through careful selection and creation of relevant e-Learning materials, we intend to develop the rural community using the potential of rural people and adopting participatory approaches for building knowledge, skills and capacity.